Dean Ashton is definitely out but Craig Bellamy and Carlton Cole have a chance of facing Fulham
26.09.2008
Gianfranco Zola may have both Craig Bellamy and Carlton Cole at his disposal when West Ham United travel to Fulham although Dean Ashton faces a spell on the sidelines.
Both Bellamy and Cole trained on Friday and are in contention for the London derby, along with Calum Davenport who also missed out on the midweek match at Watford with a knock. With David Di Michele looking to build on his two assists and two goals in his first two Barclays Premier League outings, Robert Green, Scott Parker and Valon Behrami hoping to return and Herita Ilunga vying with Walter Lopez for the left-back berth, it promises to be an exciting contest. The manager is taking nothing for granted though.
"It is going to be a tough match," Zola said before adding that he expects his players to show a marked improvement on the 1-0 loss on Tuesday that ended the club's Carling Cup hopes for the season. He added: "Fulham are a good side. They are also playing good football. We know it is going to be tough. We don't like that we lost on Wednesday and we are going to try and bounce back straight away."
Zola will be without Ashton, who is set to be missing until the New Year as a result of his left ankle injury suffered earlier this month. As announced yesterday, the 24-year-old England international will undergo arthroscopic surgery early next week to assess the full extent of the problem. He will be on crutches for six weeks.
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Fulham v West Ham preview - SSN
London duo lock horns after midweek losses
Last updated: 26th September 2008
Skysports.com prediction: Fulham 1 West Ham 1
Sky Bet odds: Fulham 11/8, Draw 9/4, West Ham 2/1
One to Watch: Jimmy Bullard
London clubs Fulham and West Ham United lock horns on Saturday with both sides keen to rid their memories of midweek Carling Cup disappointments.
Both Premier League teams suffered defeat to Championship opposition and are aiming to bounce back at Craven Cottage. Roy Hodgson's Cottagers have recorded two victories in their four league fixtures this term. The Hammers, meanwhile, lie sixth in the table, having amassed a total of nine points from their opening five outings. West Ham's recent away record in the league is poor, but they will be optimistic of bucking that trend as their last success on the road came at Fulham in February. Gianfranco Zola enjoyed an excellent bow in charge at Upton Park with a win over unsettled Newcastle, but he will be aware Hodgson's troops will provide a sterner examination of his managerial abilities.
Team news
Hodgson is set to continue to put his faith in strike duo Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora, who faces his former club after joining Fulham over the summer.
Diomansy Kamara (knee) remains a long-term injury victim, but Hodgson has no fresh fitness concerns to contend with for the encounter.
Zola will be without striker Dean Ashton after the news that he will undergo surgery on a troublesome ankle problem. The Italian coach is hopeful forwards Craig Bellamy and Carlton Cole will be available with the pair both recently suffering with respective groin and ankle troubles. Defender Calum Davenport could also return to the squad as the club look to record their first league clean sheet in 18 attempts.
Possible starting XIs
Fulham: Schwarzer, Pantsil, Hughes, Hangeland, Konchesky, Davies, Bullard, Murphy, Gera, Zamora, Johnson.
West Ham: Green, Ilunga, Neill, Davenport, Upson, Behrami, Parker, Noble, Etherington, Cole, Di Michele.
Fulham v West Ham. Click here
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West Ham accused of new rule breach by Football Association - Telegraph
Scott Duxbury's position as West Ham chief executive has been placed under fresh doubt.
By Jeremy Wilson
Last Updated: 9:42PM BST 26 Sep 2008
A Football Association independent arbitration tribunal accused the east London club of new breaches of a Premier League rule and were particularly critical of the conduct of Duxbury.
West Ham were punished with a £5.5 million fine in April 2007 by an independent Premier League commission after they previously admitted breaking league rules over the signings of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. However, their subsequent actions have come in for criticism from the arbitration panel set up to hear Sheffield United's claim for £30 million in damages.
"We consider that West Ham's conduct immediately after the commission's decision of April 27, 2007, and its non-disclosure of such conduct to the Premier League, amounted to further breaches of the obligation under Rule B13 to behave with the utmost good faith towards the Premier League," said the tribunal.
This judgment followed conversations Duxbury held with Kia Joorabchian, Tevez's agent, and Graham Shear, Joorabchian's solicitor, about the private agreement over Tevez that was unilaterally terminated by West Ham so he could complete the season.
According to the tribunal, whose findings were fully published yesterday, "the object of those discussions was to reassure the rights owners that, irrespective of the formal position which West Ham had had to adopt, everything which the private agreement required would be realised in practice". It added: "Given the robust attitude of the Premier League as regards the private agreement, it is in our view inconceivable that it would have been prepared to tolerate West Ham's stance towards the rights owners."
The Premier League are still considering whether to take action against Duxbury while West Ham have said his position is not under review. West Ham are also facing the prospect of legal action from relegated Sheffield United players for loss of earnings and may appeal the tribunal's ruling against them to the High Court or Fifa.
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After the lies came the farce - KUMB
Filed: Saturday, 27th September 2008
By: East Stand Martin
I have some very good friends in Sheffield. We have a lot in common. We all love our football clubs and we also love English cricket. Sheffield United Football Club is a great Yorkshire institution and I happen to have a lot of respect for its fans. They are passionate. They are not glory-hunters. They support their local club, although admittedly quite a number of locals prefer the other steel city club, who my mates disparagingly call 'Wendys'. Their corruption of 'Annie's Song' has to be one of great football anthems. I like visiting Bramall Lane because it reminds me of football grounds in the 1980s. It's a piece of nostalgia.
A few weeks ago, I got a message from Sheffield telling me that the Blades were confident that they had emerged victorious in the arbitration case against West Ham. It seemed hard to believe. It felt like 50% windup, 50% speculation but they were sticking to their story and claiming that their legal team had wiped the floor with ours.
Hitler's daily paper
The story broke this week after the arbitration decision was formally delivered to the two clubs last Friday. That esteemed organ, The Daily Mail - the paper that lent its support in the 1930's to the mass bombers of the East End, the German Nazi party - was the chosen outlet for the leaks from the report that were no doubt served up on a plate by sources close to The Blades.
Before we consider what we have learnt from the media this week, let's just backtrack on a bit of old ground. You may have seen a couple of pieces I wrote for KUMB.com previously - Deceit, Greed and Incompetence (after the FAPL Disciplinary Commission report was published in April 2007) and Post Arbitration Panel Thoughts (after the report of the Arbitration Panel was published in July 2007).
My conclusions at the time of the original judgment were that the previous regime running our club had brought shame upon every West Ham fan in this country with their deceit and greed. They had knowingly and recklessly put our great club at risk with their sordid and underhand dealings. There was little doubt that our club had deliberately concealed the truth from the FAPL regarding the side deals on Tevez and Mascherano and had then gone on to mislead the FAPL when further assurances had been sought.
There is no point in any West Ham fan trying to defend what went on at that time, no matter how much we all want to support our team.
Remember what the Commission and Panel had found – we were not only in breach of the rule regarding third party ownership (U18) but also the rule which reasonably enough requires all FAPL clubs to act in good faith.
Scott of the Antics
It's at this point that we should perhaps pause and reflect a little on the role in all of this of Mr Scott Duxbury, then our Legal Director, now our Chief Executive and a man whose continued presence in a senior position at our club is not in question according to a statement from the Boleyn Ground this week.
From what can be pieced together from a reading of the reports about the original turn of events, Mr Duxbury maintained that Jane Purdon, Secretary of the FAPL did not tell him on the 'phone that a deal which involved a third party having the ability to exercise a break clause in a player's contract was an infringement of Rule U18. Purdon begged to differ.
Further, Mr Duxbury said at the time that he didn't know anything about the famous Rule U18. Hard to believe as it amounted to an admission that a highly paid legal executive had not acquainted himself with the rules in the context of a highly unusual transfer deal. What do you make of that? Some might say he's either not telling the truth or he's incompetent.
Apparently it was our then Chief Executive, Paul Aldridge who came up with the solution to the third party ownership problem - a secret side deal with the modern day human trafficker, Mr Kia Joorabchian. What's Scott's take on that? I'll check the rules, Paul.
Yep, Paul, non-disclosure is acceptable. Really? Do me a favour. How can it possibly be acting in good faith to construct a secret side contract to deliberately get round a rule? What is your definition of bad faith, Mr Duxbury?
The exchanges that followed between Mr Duxbury and Jane Purdon of the FAPL on what happened next were also interesting. Duxbury denies (according to Purdon) the existence of the third party deal or ducks the question when directly asked if there is a side deal with Kia (according to Duxbury). Make your own mind up on what really happened there.
It just didn't add up, so unsatisfied, the FAPL in the shape of its Chief Executive, then pops the question to Paul Aldridge. Is there a side deal or not with these players, it seems strange you have got them for free? According to the judgment, Aldridge simply does not tell the truth.
Bang to rights
This is why at the end of the day, we are bang to rights. These senior members of our club's management team behaved in a highly dubious and questionable fashion because they were desperate to secure the coup of signing two world class players.
Let's just forget for a moment that we want our club to act honestly and transparently. After all, the other FAPL clubs are just as dodgy in their business dealings with their tapping up and their 'gentlemen's agreements' not to play loaned players in certain fixtures (like Steve Kabba in that game against Watford eh Mr McCabe? How do you define 'third party control of other clubs, Mr McHypocrite?). Why shouldn't we pull a fast one?
The answer for me even in that situation is that the decision to bring the two Argies to the club was not actually based too much at all on a footballing decision. It was a commercial decision linked to Mr Terry Brown trying to do a multi million pound deal to sell the club that he had picked up for a song. The potential consequences were clearly not that important to him as he hoped to be off to his caravan park in a gold plated baby Bentley.
I'll come back later to the extent of the disruption on the pitch which followed. It was the wrong decision, a deeply flawed mistake that we will be paying for both in terms of financial outlay and reputation for a very long time.
It's important to go back to this, because it sets the context of where we are now. Although I am quite comfortable saying that our club behaved dishonourably and maybe we should have been punished more (despite the fact that the situation was without precedent and there was no tariff set for any punishment), I think that this latest so-called arbitration has seen the whole affair descend into a farce of monumental proportions.
What does the judgment say?
A word of caution, first. We really do need to see the full judgment. We have been getting selected highlights so far and these have been leaked with the intention of causing West Ham the most damage. We have seen the other two previous judgments and the Daily Mail has got its copy. It's time we the fans were allowed to see full chapter and verse. There's a number of unanswered questions.
Let's focus on the reported main conclusion of the learned Judge Lord Griffiths, no doubt an avid football fan with an encyclopaedic knowledge and long-term understanding of the game:
"On the totality of the evidence, we have no doubt that West Ham would have secured at least three fewer points over the 2006/07 season if Carlos Tevez had not been playing for the club.
"Indeed, we think it more likely than not on the evidence that we heard, that even over the final two games of the season, West Ham would have achieved at least three points less overall without Mr Tevez. He played outstandingly well in the two wins that West Ham secured in those last two games."
How convenient. 3 points less. Nothing to do with the fact that the difference was exactly that between West Ham and Sheffield United. Why not 4 points? Why not 6? Come to think of it why not 2 points given that if Tevez hadn't scored at Old Trafford we would have still got a draw, which would have been enough to stay up?
A game of opinions
Football as we know is a game of opinions. It's also about hypothetical situations. What if Lenny Scaloni had shielded the ball out in the FA Cup Final rather than hoofing out for a throw? The point is this. No Judge, no matter what expensive school and elite university he went to, no matter whether he can read Latin, do big sums or play Beethoven's 5th without a music score, no Judge can convince anybody that he knows exactly what the contribution of an individual player expressed in points can be.
By the way, Your Honour. Just in case that your posh school concluded that 'Association Football' was NOCD ('not our class darling'), points are won on a football pitch by not conceding goals as well as scoring them. It is a team game which involves a goalkeeper, defence, midfield, attack and manager who makes tactical plays and substitutions.
Who kept us up?
I was at every one of those final nine games that year home and away. I'll tell you who kept us up. It was Robert Green at The Emirates. It was our magnificent defence at just about all of those games except when the blue filth humbled them at the Boleyn Ground and we got slaughtered at Bramall Lane – irony of ironies – with Carlos Tevez on the pitch. It was our midfield, battling for their lives. It was even a linesman at Ewood Park who gave a goal when Tevez should have really cost us a goal by getting in the way stupidly of a goal-bound shot.
Another small point, Your Honour. Have you actually thought about whether Mr Tevez and his pal Javier might have been at the root of why West Ham was struggling in the first place? This is the point made earlier – the deal was not related to football, it was related to our Chairman getting sweaty palms about selling our club. I was at the game when Tevez first scored. It sent me radio rental as it was against the renegade outfit now at its rightful level at the foot of the league table. A game that we lost, in March 2007, 7 months after Tevez arrived. But the reality was that like the situation which led to the recent departure of Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley, these players were dropped in out of the ether into our club and it totally disrupted the team. Your Honour, these two players were a negative force for a large part of the season, you are making the schoolboy error of just looking at the end of the season.
You have also forgotten something else. The small matter of how every other club played during that whole season. A huge amount of permutations. Have you thought about the contributory negligence of Sheffield United in playing like a bunch of tw*ts in the run in? 8 points out of 33 in their last 11 games. Who cost Sheffield United three points more directly, Carlos Tevez or Mr Neil Warnock in fielding a below strength team in their game against Manchester United? You tell me.
Perverse
Although I believe this judgment to be perverse, it is increasingly looking like we will not be given the opportunity to challenge it. Sheffield United have been given more than one chance. There was the original Commission. We were fined £5.5 million.
At that time they did nothing as they thought that they would be staying up. Then there was the Arbitration Panel where they were right in there arguing their corner after they'd bottled it at home against Wigan on the last day of the season.. They didn't like the outcome of the Arbitration Panel. They went to the High Court. They lost that. Then they forced arbitration, a hearing that West Ham, despite being punished and scrutinised on previous occasions could not refuse. They appear to get a result, but we have nowhere to go.
Mr McCabe, the great seeker of justice and paragon of virtue and fair play seems strangely reluctant in going to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, given his apparent affection for quasi judicial proceedings. Why not? If you're so sure you're right, why deny us our opportunity to have our say? We are now the victims but we have no natural justice of a right to appeal. The man is a hypocrite of the highest order.
The arena for battle now is apparently quantifying the order of damages to Sheffield United. It could go on for a long time and surely the real contribution in points by Tevez coupled with the contributory negligence of The Blades will define any damages. Trying to establish that should involve the re-viewing of a lot of Premiership football games in the 2006/07 season. As for the Sheffield United players joining in the legal jamboree - face the facts boys you played like a pile of s***e and got your just rewards. Call me old fashioned but I don't think you should reward failure.
Scott of the further Antics
I've said a few things about Mr Duxbury based on what came out of the previous judgments and I want to finish on another important revelation which apparently came out of the Arbitration. It is the evidence given by Kia Joorabchian's lawyer Graham Shear that Duxbury privately told him that although West Ham had repudiated the 'side contract' with his client unilaterally in writing, in reality this deal still stood.
The main point about this is there is no indication that Duxbury was interviewed about this. It is clearly one person's word against the other, a bit like what happened between Duxbury and Purdon early on in the process. The difference is that there was the letter tearing up the side contract - the only physical evidence available.
I am really struggling to understand under what circumstances Duxbury would say this to Kia's man. Remember this was just prior to the Wigan game that we had to regularise the contract with Tevez. There were three games left, Wigan, Bolton and Man U. Why would he have said that except to try and convince Kia not to pull Tevez out in a contractual dispute? But would Kia have pressed that particular button? Pulling Tevez out would have left him in the spotlight and taken his asset out of the shop window. The summer transfer window was approaching. No, the reality was that although the contract was against the league rules, English law no doubt would have been on Kia's side. Don't forget, too, that Kia actually commenced a High Court action against West Ham in July to enforce his legal rights over Tevez. It does seem to me strange that Duxbury said what was alleged by Shear, but nevertheless it is damaging to our cause. It is also damaging to Scott Duxbury. So we are all waiting for you, Scott, to come out fighting on that one. What do you say about this?
Despite the disappointment with the decision in Sheffield United's favour, we should take some strength from this latest bizarre twist in a saga which we needed like a nine inch nail in the scrotum. I don't know about you, but I have moved on from feeling embarrassed and ashamed about the antics of the administration of our club to anger at what appears to be a very perverse ruling which has subjectively attempted to apply points to the efforts of one individual player in our 2006/07 squad. It has also fundamentally changed the nature of football in this country, although a new culture of litigation was bound to take off with the obscene levels of money now in the modern game. The Rubicon has been crossed in the Tevez saga.
Come on you Irons.
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West Ham challenge McCabe to take Tevez justice crusade to CAS
David Hytner The Guardian, Saturday September 27 2008
West Ham United will tell the Sheffield United chairman, Kevin McCabe, that if he values honour and justice he ought to accompany them to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for a final showdown on the Carlos Tevez affair.
The London club remain incredulous at the judgment of the Griffiths arbitration panel, the latest to rule on the saga, which has found in favour of Sheffield United and recommended the award of damages. McCabe will push for a figure in excess of £30m. West Ham will now go to CAS in Switzerland in an attempt to overturn that decision and will make their submissions on Tuesday, even though the CAS secretary general, Matthieu Reeb, has warned that the court "would need agreement from Sheffield United" for an appeal to have any hope of being heard.
United are unlikely to want to take the matter to CAS but West Ham feel that McCabe has made great play out of moral issues during his crusade over Tevez; they will point out that CAS is recognised by the Football Association, Uefa and Fifa as the ultimate arbitrator and urge him to take his principles with him to Switzerland.
The Griffiths panel will hold a directional hearing next Thursday, at which both clubs will be represented and the process of setting a compensation figure for Sheffield United will begin. West Ham will fight any such award and are considering taking their grievance to the high court. The Premier League plans to await the resolution of what it considers to be a private dispute between the clubs before it acts on the findings of Griffiths, which are critical of West Ham's chief executive, Scott Duxbury.
In further bad news for West Ham, it was revealed yesterday that they will be without Dean Ashton until the new year after the striker's ankle injury proved more serious than expected.
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Money's talking but not with much sense - irishTimes.com
WE HARDLY need to be told that something's changed. The game, the entity that is professional football in England is in a cycle of revolutions that are financial, behavioural, social and sporting and while the energy generated by any revolution is electric and fascinating, sometimes what is lost or forgotten or trampled upon is just as important.
To be at Bramall Lane on May 13th of last year was to witness the full spectrum of change.
Bramall Lane, one of those great hulking old grounds that can still be walked to from a city centre, has been home to Sheffield United since 1889. It was a big year for Parnell. Bramall Lane goes way back.
One hundred and eighteen years on, we had a hint that Sunday afternoon, wet, overcast and heavy with meaning long before kick-off, that we were being shown the new present and the future as well as the tradition of the city with the oldest football club in the world, Sheffield FC.
The day began with Sheffield United outside the bottom three, an achievement for a just-promoted club as the last game of the season approached.
Wigan, the visitors to Bramall Lane, were one place below them and had to win to give themselves a chance to stay up. The thought consoling the United manager Neil Warnock and Blades' fans was that West Ham were also in the relegation mix and they were at Old Trafford. There they had to get at least a point.
Things started badly for Sheffield United. Paul Scharner put a breezy Wigan one up early on and though Jon Stead equalised bravely, Wigan came again and scored from a David Unsworth penalty on the stroke of half-time.
Coincidentally, in the same minute at Old Trafford, Carlos Tevez scored for West Ham. It was 1-2 at Bramall Lane and 0-1 at Old Trafford at the interval. That's the way it stayed. Sheffield United went down, Wigan and West Ham survived.
As the rain fell ever harder on south Yorkshire that long Sunday night, the sunny city of Buenos Aires sparkled in the gloom.
That is where Tevez is from, South America is where many Premier League players are from. It is part of the changing world and the methods and the means from there are different, aren't they?
When Cristiano Ronaldo used the word "slave" to describe his relationship with Manchester United during the summer, he was rightly ridiculed, but there was something unsavoury about Tevez' contractual situation. It has been long-questioned but this week it finally blew up and the consequences are appropriately large.
Who owned Tevez and who paid whom was contested from the moment in August 2006 that he joined West Ham in the company of Javier Mascherano. But there was also fanfare at the time, this was one of the most exciting transfers Upton Park had seen.
Yet again the pulling power of the Premier League was being paraded. Maradona, no less, had labelled Tevez "a prophet". But we were also made familiar with other terms such as "third-party ownership".
We did not like the sound of that or the implications. It felt sly somehow and we were uncomfortable.
Sure enough, even the Premier League - eventually - did not like the way Tevez had been registered and they fined West Ham for that. But crucially they allowed Tevez to play on.
This week an independent tribunal under the auspices of the English Football Association found West Ham guilty of benefiting from Tevez' presence, especially on that afternoon at Old Trafford. But his six goals in the previous nine matches could hardly be glossed over either.
Due to bad practice, Tevez had been allowed to make a difference substantial enough to keep West Ham up. Few football observers would disagree.
But in a court of law it is not so straightforward and so though the tribunal has awarded Sheffield United compensation of €37.75 million, West Ham will employ lawyers to fight their way out much as they employed Tevez to do the same.
Money being money, individual Sheffield players have now consulted other legal adviseors to see if they have a claim on lost earnings, their pay having been halved on relegation.
Some might throw up their hands and ask how we got to the situation where what we know colloquially as "a ringer" from Argentina was able to change the season's outcome of Sheffield United and West Ham United. But the answer is deregulation and the addiction to stay in front. It belongs to the Premier League, hence 39th game and all that.
Thanks to the goals of Carlos Tevez two years ago, that feels a world away from Bramall Lane.
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Curbishley: Blades argument flawed - Setanta
by Joseph Caron Dawe, 26 September 2008
Former West Ham manager Alan Curbishley has told Setanta Sports he believes Sheffield United's argument in their appeal to a tribunal over the Carlos Tevez affair was "fundamentally flawed". Speaking on the Friday Football Show, Curbishley explained that The Blades' foundation for their successful appeal to a tribunal – which earlier in the week ruled in favour of the Yorkshire club over The Hammers – does not make sense to him. An independent arbitration panel ruled that Tevez – who was illegally registered and played a role in keeping West Ham up at the expense of United in the 2006-07 season – was worth "at least three points" to the East London outfit, and their decision has paved the way for a claim for damages from the wronged club. However, West Ham's manager at the time Curbishley does not see the sense in United's argument and maintains there were a host of other factors that contributed to the club's relegation, not just the form of Tevez. "I think their argument is fundamentally flawed," Curbishley told the Friday Football Show. "Over 38 games, with the 20 teams competing against each other, to say that one player alone can be responsible for a team staying up… You've got to take into consideration that Carlos Tevez didn't score for 18 games. "In the run-in he did score, but there were a number of contributing factors. The team was settled, only 13 players were used in the run-in for the last nine games, we kept five clean sheets, we won games 1-0. So has the back four got nothing to do with that result? "In some of the games Carlos Tevez was substituted before the end. For the football side of it it's fundamentally flawed to say one player is solely responsible for the team being successful. "You have to take into consideration Sheffield United's situation in all of this. They went on a run in their last seven or eight games where they hardly picked any points up. So aren't they culpable as well? "There are so many aspects of football and in the game that you cannot pin it on one player. The registration of players is a different thing."
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Zola : Heat is on for Hammers - The Sun
By PAUL JIGGINS
GIANFRANCO ZOLA says managing West Ham has turned him into a hothead — literally. The Italian's bonce is at boiling point after a frantic fortnight in charge of the Hammers. He admitted: "It's a big job that involves many things I wasn't aware of. I am working so hard, my brain is very hot!" Zola has already experienced more than most managers have to contend with in a lifetime after: CRASH! Sponsors XL went bust; BANG! The club faced a £30m demand after losing the Carlos Tevez compensation battle; HICCUP! Striker Carlton Cole was nicked on suspicion of drink-driving. Zola, who takes his side to London rivals Fulham today, added: "I am also losing a lot of hair, but I like the job very much. It is a great challenge for me and, the more I get into it, the more I like it. "When you think 'I'm a manager' you think you'll be working on the pitch, then you realise there are so many other duties. "It is keeping me very busy, but I do it. I like it." Zola, 42, also insisted Cole's drink-drive rap is not the reason he is a doubt for the trip across the capital. It is more to do with a pulled muscle than being pulled over by the police at 4.30am on Tuesday.
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Hodgson hoping for Bobby brilliance - TeamTalk
Fulham manager Roy Hodgson is hopeful summer signing Bobby Zamora can rise to the occasion against his former club West Ham on Saturday. The 27-year-old left the Hammers in a £6.3million deal which also saw Ghana defender John Pantsil arrive at Craven Cottage. Zamora had to endure an injury-hit final season at Upton Park in which he scored just one goal and his departure went unmourned by the majority of Hammers fans. Hodgson said: "It would be nice if he was thinking 'I've got something to prove and with the talent I've got as a player I can do even more'. "He has made a good impression so far. He is very keen to be here and keen to work. He is also interested in what we do here tactically. "So far he has been very much the player I thought I was signing."
A chance meeting with former West Ham manager Alan Curbishley, who quit earlier in the month and has been replaced by Gianfranco Zola, also reinforced Hodgson's conviction that Zamora would justify his price tag. He said: "It was an unprovoked comment when I met Alan recently. He asked how both Bobby and John were doing. He said they were not two players he was anxious to lose. "The club had to get some money and had to sell some players - and these two were sellable. It wasn't him pushing them out of the door."
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Zola learning quickly at Hammers - Setanta
by Joseph Caron Dawe, 26 September 2008
Gianfranco Zola says he is fast becoming accustomed to the management game following his appointment as West Ham boss just over two weeks ago.
The Italian tasted success in his first game in charge when The Hammers beat Newcastle, but he was brought back down to earth with a bump when his side were defeated in midweek by Watford in the Carling Cup. Those experiences have taught him a lot in a short amount of time, and Zola says he is learning the ropes quickly. Zola said: "When you walk in as a manager you think you will be working on the pitch. There were many things I was not aware of and you realise you have so many other duties to attend to. "It is something that is keeping me very busy. I am working very hard. My brain is very hot!
"This is a big job but that is why I like it."
West Ham captain Lucas Neill says the diminutive Zola has brought a whole new buzz to the training ground, which the players have responded well to.
"A new manager brings new ideas and 'mister', as he likes to be called, has challenged us on the training ground with a lot of sessions that are new to everyone and a system unfamiliar to a majority of the team," said Neill. "In response, the boys have been very committed and the intensity of training has reached another level, in a bid to not only impress but to perfect the new style and formation."
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Hammers Striker Ashton out until 2009 -Echo
6:02pm Friday 26th September 2008
DEAN Ashton will be out of action until 2009, West Ham United have confirmed. The England striker will undergo arthroscopic surgery next Tuesday on the same ankle he broke in August 2006 - an injury that sidelined the 24-year-old for the entire 2006/07 season. Ashton re-injured his left ankle in training at Chadwell Heath last Monday - new manager Gianfranco Zola's first day in charge - but the club initially expected him to return within a month. However, following re-examination by the club's medical staff, Ashton will go under the knife next week in an attempt to discover the full extent of the damage. The surgery, which will see a tiny camera inserted through a small incision into the striker's ankle joint, will leave the £7.25million player on crutches for six weeks, with the lengthy rehabilitation expected to take in excess of three months to be completed. A statement on West Ham's official website posted on Friday evening confirmed the news. "Zola will be without Ashton (for the Premier League fixture at Fulham on Saturday), who is set to be missing until the New Year as a result of his left ankle injury suffered earlier this month," said the statement. "As announced yesterday (Thursday), the 24-year-old England international will undergo arthroscopic surgery early next week to assess the full extent of the problem. "He will be on crutches for six weeks."
Ashton, who signed a new £50,000-a-week contract in the summer, also missed more than two months of last season with knee and back injuries. The news will be a major blow to boss Zola ahead of just his third match in charge. However, the Italian has been boosted by the news that both Craig Bellamy and Carlton Cole successfully came through a full training session on Friday. Both the Wales captain, who has been restricted to just one appearance this season by hamstring and groin injuries, and Cole, who suffered a blow to his ankle in last weekend's win over Blackburn Rovers, are in contention to play at Craven Cottage.
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'Extortionate' tickets returned to Fulham as credit crunch starts to bite - Echo
4:01pm Friday 26th September 2008
By Rob Pritchard »
WEST Ham United have returned 350 tickets to Fulham for Saturday's Premier League clash at Craven Cottage. The news will come as a shock to many Irons' fans who take pride in the club's fanatical travelling support. But with the credit crunch taking hold, it appears some Hammers' supporters have decided against shelling out the £48 asking price. Some 200 full-price tickets have been returned to the Cottagers, while another 150 £46 "restricted view" tickets have also been sent back to West London. The ticket prices, among the highest for away supporters in the Premier League, have attracted widespread criticism among the West ham faithful. "Fulham away is a great fixture, but the price of the tickets is just extortionate," said one season-ticket holder. "There is a good away pub near Putney Bridge station and the ground itself is old and has plenty of character. "I usually love going there, but £48 is just too much, way too much. "People are going to be priced out of the game and supporting the club they love soon if this carries on."
The price of away tickets at Craven Cottage has almost doubled in the past four seasons. In 2005/06, West Ham's first season back in the Premier League, the cost was just £28. The following season, the price jumped to £35, and then again to £45 last term. All 350 remaining tickets will be available (cash only) on matchday through the Craven Cottage turnstiles. More than 3,000 West Ham supporters have already bought tickets for Saturday's game, which sees the Irons go up against former players Bobby Zamora, John Pantsil, Jimmy Bullard and Paul Konchesky.
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